No, Mr. Lewis, We’re Not Killing Grandma

“Thou shalt not be aware.” 

This is, in summary, the argument we are hearing against non-mainstream views since the very beginning of the pandemic. The China-like levels of censorship and disinformation pushed by Google, YouTube, Facebook, and the mainstream media has been staggering. Mr. Lewis hardly had to hit “return” on his Google search to easily find what he so badly wanted: hit pieces offering pre-packaged reasons for telling other people what they should think and what they should do about their health. And to shut up and comply if you don’t agree.

The only problem is, there is already too much solid evidence available that counters the orthodox narrative, supported by credentialed doctors and scientists and scores of peer-reviewed studies. 

In July, the esteemed British medical publication The Lancet published a study concluding that lockdowns and testing did not statistically reduce critical cases or deaths from COVID-19 (https://bit.ly/36KT2aB). Over a dozen others studies have arrived at the same conclusion (http://tiny.cc/lockdown-studies). The most recent study (published 11/19) concluded that what has most influenced COVID deaths is the metabolic disease level, life expectancy trends, economic issues, and environment (temperature and UV index), and that measures to control the viral spread, like masking and lockdowns, were not correlated with deaths (http://tiny.cc/ga25tz). 

On October 9, the World Health Organization (WHO), in a staggering about-face, repudiated the idea that lockdowns work and counseled countries with the following: “We really do appeal to all world leaders: stop using lockdown as your primary control method” (https://bit.ly/36MUUzB). Notably, prior to the current pandemic, the WHO already had a long-standing policy to avoid lockdowns for viral outbreaks (https://bit.ly/3knebMB).

JP Morgan Chase also analyzed the lockdown data and determined that the mortality rate was higher for countries with stricter control measures, and that antibody levels were similar for both groups of countries. Their recommendation was therefore that “public health policy should consider approaches biased towards economic/pubic mental health over the urge to close the curve in 2021” and “Keeping public activities open and tracing susceptible people… looks to have better risk reward to us” (https://bit.ly/3kJQ1ML). 

Conspicuously, for a country that has never used lockdowns, Sweden has seen its COVID-19 death rate continue to fall relative to other countries using more restrictive measures. Life in Sweden now continues as normal with no masking requirements, social distancing, etc.

The claim that masks have helped arrest the progression of COVID-19 has no basis in fact. One has to simply look at the state- or country-level progression of the virus against the dates of implementation of mask-wearing mandates to see that there is zero correlation (see https://bit.ly/3pHzXyM and https://bit.ly/3kJTA5B and/or watch http://tiny.cc/mask-data). 

Despite more recent and low-quality observational and associational studies (e.g., https://bit.ly/3pFvg8C), the claim that masking the public in community settings can reduce the spread of a virus is contradicted by over four decades of research with high-quality randomized controlled trials (https://bit.ly/3khDy3d). The only COVID-era randomized control trial shows no statistical advantage for mask-wearers (https://bit.ly/32W9Biw). Even the WHO was counseling against mask-wearing for healthy people in community settings (http://tiny.cc/WHO-dont-wear-masks) before they, like many other medical organizations, performed another about-face, based on political and not medical or scientific considerations.

Now, it’s true that we are beginning to see an increase in COVID-19 cases, but what do we really know based on the evidence? 

First, the increase in cases has been wildly out of proportion to the increase in deaths. This is largely because the PCR test is unreliable at best and results in many false positives, something even Anthony Fauci admits (https://bit.ly/3lEbN5L). Even Elon Musk recently complained about the test’s unreliability when, after having taken 4 PCR tests on the same day, two came back positive and two came back negative. 

Second, a positive result on a positive PCR test is not always confirmed by clinical observations or further testing, meaning the person may simply have some long-dead bits of the virus floating around in his or her bloodstream and not be ill or contagious in any way, yet can still be counted as a “case.” Understanding the science, on November 19 a Portuguese court ruled PCR tests to be unlawful as a basis for quarantining someone because:

…if someone is tested by PCR as positive when a threshold of 35 cycles or higher is used (as is the rule in most laboratories in Europe and the US), the probability that said person is infected is less than 3%, and the probability that said result is a false positive is 97%. (https://bit.ly/3lPhgGP)

Third, PCR test counts have been fraught with double-counting and other significant issues (https://abc13.co/38VJKve) that have badly distorted the data (https://bit.ly/3pzC4EC).

Fourth, we know that fall and winter bring on the annual round of excess deaths from respiratory illnesses (“winter burden”), yet the CDC and mainstream media provide no context for such expected conditions. Remarkably, flu deaths have almost entirely disappeared (https://bit.ly/35I4KDD) and almost every death from respiratory illness is now being blamed on COVID-19. 

Finally, the new hotspots for COVID cases in the US have a strong correlation to geographic locations where corn and soy – the two crops most heavily sprayed with the toxic herbicide glyphosate, which has been implicated in COVID-19 – have recently been harvested (https://bit.ly/32YTgJU).

So what do we know for sure? According to the CDC (https://bit.ly/3kImKSG), the estimated mortality rate for those under 20 who are actually infected is just 0.000003 (yes, five zeros after the decimal point) – that’s significantly less than the risk from the annual flu, and less than the typical risk for death from car accident for those under 20, which is five per 100,000. Moreover, the actual death count for children 18 and under is 133 (https://bit.ly/2INDWJs); measured against a total 18-and-under population of approximately 77 million, that would make the overall risk under 2 in a million. For those 50-69, the hazard is 0.005. For those under 50 it’s 0.0002, five times less than the seasonal flu. And for this we must have all the lockdowns and mask mandates?

Of course, we know for those over 70 the risk is considerably higher, especially for those with chronic health conditions; the CDC reports an average of 2.6 comorbidities for 94% of the reported deaths (https://bit.ly/3kMdAEu). Few people are discussing how PM_2.5 air pollution is significantly correlated with COVID-19 deaths (https://bit.ly/3lLc3jh), or how prescription drugs that upregulate ACE-2 sites in the body may be creating a perfect storm of susceptibility for our chronically-ill elderly population (https://wb.md/32WgPmC). Yes, we should be taking extraordinary measures to protect our elderly and vulnerable populations. But when statewide, over 80% of victims are in nursing homes, and when here in Cheshire County we’ve only seen three deaths all year from COVID-19, reasonable people have every right to question the never-ending mandates being broadly applied to a healthy population. To us, there is simply no basis in the observable evidence or science. 

No one is saying don’t be careful or take care of yourself or loved ones. We’re saying we don’t have to be so afraid. We don’t have to buy the 24/7 fear-disease-death narrative that has everyone wearing masks even when alone and fearing the very air they breathe will kill them or others. 

In a classic straw-man argument, Mr. Lewis would like you to believe that over 12,000 scientists and doctors – from places like Harvard University, Oxford University, and Stanford University – together with 35,000 health practitioners and over 600,000 citizens, have all been cleverly hoodwinked by the Koch Brothers, and that epidemiologists, virologists, immunologists and other scientists globally who are not falling into line with the mainstream narrative must have some other agenda. Yes, they do have an agenda: they want healthy and transparent debate to inform our public policy. They want an open review of the one-size-fits-all pandemic interventions that have thrown tens of millions out of work; destroyed millions of businesses; resulted in tens of thousands of excess deaths from Alzheimer’s, dementia, drug overdoses, and suicide; have traumatized an entire generation of children; and is on course to impoverish millions more worldwide and cause millions of deaths from starvation (https://bit.ly/2IJdBvH) – all without a credible scientific basis.

The WHO and the CDC do not work for you or me – they are for all practical purposes privately owned, funded by and actively partnered with pharmaceutical companies. The CDC itself owns patents on dozens of vaccines and profits to the tune of $4.1 billion per year from their sale, an amount likely to multiply many times with a COVID-19 vaccine. The US Congress has long condemned their conflicts of interest (https://bit.ly/32WaJmq), while it passed a no-liability bill for vaccine companies (https://bit.ly/36RKoac) that has resulted in US taxpayers shelling out $4.3 billion to date for vaccine injuries (https://bit.ly/35Iy8th).

The thinking and policy-making around COVID have become badly distorted by politics and fear. It’s time for the American public to wake up to what’s going on and become engaged in a robust public debate, free from censorship and thought control that wants to shut out all “unauthorized” views, free from emotionally overwrought propaganda that says you are killing grandma if you don’t shut up and go along, and based in the actual evidence. We at Rise Up NH are keen to have that debate.